Preserve ships’ shapes, group urges; Advocates want to teach divers how to keep wrecks from getting ruined
April 18, 08 by TheFleetIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Source: Kingston Whig-Standard
Brian Prince, president of Save Ontario Shipwrecks, said his group runs workshops and classes [about preserving underwater wrecks] with the help of instructors from Parks Canada and the Ministry of Culture.
“We have nice shipwrecks and we have warm water all the way to the bottom,” he said. “That’s why it’s the world’s best secret here.”
The secret is quickly being let out as more people are wanting to dive in the area. Prince said there are about 20 charter operators that take people diving just to see wrecks in this area compared with only a handful operating on the Great Lakes.
“I’d say it’s getting more and more popular all the time,” Prince said.
That’s where the educational aspect kicks in. The more that divers go through the wrecks and touch them, the more susceptible they are to falling apart.
The Robert Gaskin, a shipwreck near Brockville, lost two large chunks to the riverbed over the past year. The pieces fell a further three metres to the bottom of the river only weeks after Prince went diving in the area.
“We try to use education to say, ‘Look, you need to respect the wrecks, not touch them or touch them minimally,’ ” he said. “That all adds wear and tear.”
